


it's like a river straight to your soul, bro

by 21hax



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Bodyswap, F/M, M/M, Multi, like not in a crack way but more of an attempt at realistic
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-12-21
Updated: 2015-01-15
Packaged: 2018-03-02 14:19:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 11,991
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2815145
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/21hax/pseuds/21hax
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>So, he's seen movies about people swapping bodies before, and for some reason it always seems to mysteriously take effect during the night and they realize it when they wake up, but this isn't like that.</p><p>When Stiles swaps bodies with Scott, it's because a fucking magic river curses them, and it is <i>immediate</i>.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is just utterly self-indulgent bodyswap fic. While I do attempt humor in this, this is by no means meant to be a crack fic and it actually is gonna get kinda angsty since I like to try and explore how actually fucked up this situation would be. Also it takes place loosely after season 4.
> 
> Hope you enjoy reading it as much as I do writing it!

They're just wandering through the woods near the outskirts of Beacon Hills, having a chill bro night out. The settings of their hangouts tend to get pretty down to nature sometimes when it's close to the full moon, but Stiles is always good with whatever. They find a thin, babbling river and they think it looks cool so they follow it for a while before Stiles trips on a rock and instinctively grabs at the sleeve of Scott's hoodie and accidentally brings him down with him, both of them falling square into the river, getting totally soaked. Luckily it's shallow enough that Stiles is able to quickly pull himself back up onto his feet after a little bit of disorientation, but when he does, he's staring at what looks like a clone of himself, still trying to get up on his feet.

"Wha-what—" he doesn't even know what to say, horror tearing through him as he's reminded of looking at the copy of his body that was inhabited by the nogitsune.

He can't deal with this right now, can't even try to process it when there's all these _noises_ all around him, like they're just normal woodsy noises but _everywhere_ , and _loud_. He gives up trying to articulate anything and just whips his head around to look for Scott, starts shouting his name.

"I'm right here, dude, what the fuck?" the other Stiles says, and Stiles' eyes snap back to his face just in time to see him look at _him_. "Whoa, what the _fuck_?"

His voice pierces through Stiles' skull, but that's not important right now. Stiles slowly steps closer to the other Stiles, staring in wonder. "Scott?"

"Yeah, who the fuck are _you_?" he says, looking at Stiles with a mixture of anger and fear. Like, serious anger and fear. Somehow, Stiles can just _sense_ it.

"I'm _Stiles_!" he shouts hysterically.

"What? Why do you look like me?!"

"Why do _you_ look like _me_?!"

Scott lets out a strangled noise and brings his hands up to his face, feeling around, runs his hands through his hair, but that's no use since they have practically the same hair thickness and style. "I...I..."

"Dude, trust me. You look like my twin," Stiles says as he glances down at himself and yup, these are Scott's clothes. He steps out of the river and tugs off his shirt, trying to wring it out a little. Scott follows suit, still looking dazed. "And don't talk so loud, you're killing me. Do you _hear_ all that shit? It's like a fucking circus out there."

"Oh...dude," Scott says quietly, realization dawning on his face. "You've got all my werewolf senses. And I _don't_. Man, no wonder everything's all dull and fuzzy all of a sudden."

"God, this is what it's like for you all the time?" Stiles closes his eyes, rubbing his temples. "This blows. Like, _blows_."

"Yeah, it really does at first," Scott says sympathetically. "But you get used to it."

"Dude, I don't want to get _used_ to it!" He flails his arms, gesturing between them. "I want my _body_ back!" He shouts against his better judgement, making his low level headache start to throb.

"I _know_ , me too, but what are we supposed to _do_?" Scott yells back, and Stiles realizes how dumb he looks when he's yelling.

"Ugh, we have to fix this as soon as possible, I don't need all this visual confirmation of how gross I look literally all the time," he says with a sigh, before rubbing his hands hard over his face. It feels weird.

"Oh, stop it, you're gorgeous," Scott says with only a hint of humor, crossing his arms, and Stiles laughs.

"Okay, okay, thanks, buddy," Stiles says instead of trying to fight it and throw a pity party for himself.

Scott's arms drop back down to his sides and they just awkwardly look at each other, their surroundings, down at themselves.

"So...what do we do now?" Scott asks, and that little puppy dog look he puts on Stiles' face is ridiculous.

"Uh..." Stiles looks up and down the river next to them. "Well, the river did this, right? Should we jump in again?"

"Uh, sure, okay. Makes sense, I guess."

"Should we...here, let's recreate it," Stiles says as he grabs Scott's arm and places him next to him. "So, I trip, and then..." He pretends to trip over a rock and pulls Scott with him and they fall in again. It hurts a lot less this time around with his new werewolf body.

"Augh, dude," Scott grumbles as he gets up, still looking like Stiles, which honestly, is unsurprising to Stiles. He trips over his feet and nearly falls back down. "Your body's all soft and awkward, it's horrible."

"Well, your body is fabulous so I'm good," Stiles says, picking himself up with noticeable ease, and Scott just laughs.

"Oh, wait," Stiles tugs Scott back out of the river. "Maybe it has to be like, the bodies that did it? Like, you trip into the river and drag _me_ down, yeah?"

"Yeah, let's try it."

So Scott trips into the river and drags Stiles down, and they climb to their feet still looking like each other and impossibly wet.

"Well, fuck," Stiles says and heaves a sigh. He runs a hand through his hair, fingernails scraping against his scalp. "What do we do, Scott?"

"I dunno, man, you're the guy with the plans," Scott says with an edge of panic.

"This is a _little_ out of my league," Stiles gives a mirthless barking laugh.

"No, you can't think like that," Scott says, stepping up to him and grabbing his shoulders, fingers squeezing tight. "You've gotten us out of crazy shit before. Come on, this is just another weird supernatural mishap. We'll get through this. Okay?"

Stiles grabs Scott's shoulders too, rubs them like a quick, hard massage, and he nods a few times. "Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, okay."

Scott smacks him on his chest with an open palm a few times, then steps back. "Okay. We can poke around here for a bit longer, but I think we're gonna need to just go get help."

"From _who_?"

"Uh, the pack? We should call up a group meeting with everyone and just explain the situation and we'll start brain storming."

"Yeah, okay," Stiles says, looking idly at the river. "Do you think we should, like, try and see where this river leads? I mean, it's obviously got magical properties or something, maybe it leads somewhere...magic...al?"

"I guess," Scott sounds unsure as he looks up and down the thing.

The forest is dark, streaks of moonlight barely making their way through the trees. Honestly, they can barely even see five feet in front of them, let alone where the river leads in either direction.

"Maybe we should go," Scott says after a long pause. "It's too dark. We'll talk to everyone and come back later."

Stiles sighs. "Okay."

He roots around in his pocket for his phone, then goes, "Oh, wait," when he realizes these are Scott's pockets. "Gimme my phone."

"Oh, sure," Scott says, digging it out and handing it to him.

Stiles opens up Google maps on his phone and taps on current location. Once it loads, he drops a pin on where they are.

"Okay, I set a pin here on Google maps so we can find this place later. Let's just...get out of here, then."

They silently make their way back to where Stiles' Jeep is parked on the dirt road outside the forest, both of them fumbling a little in their new bodies. Scott tosses Stiles the keys and Stiles gets in the driver's seat before adjusting it to accommodate the different leg length. The car ride is quiet except for the usual engine noise for a long time before Scott finally breaks the silence.

"What're we gonna tell our parents?"

"Fuck," Stiles mutters.

"I mean, obviously they're in the know now, but, shit, man, Mom's so overloaded with work right now, and she has to deal with my dad now, who _isn't_ in the know...I really dunno if I wanna drop something like this on her."

"I hear ya. Dad's still not real big on all the supernatural stuff. He might not even believe us, he could think it's all a prank."

"Shit, man. What if _everyone_ thinks it's a prank?"

"I don't think they will. Not the pack. It might take some convincing but they'll get there."

"Yeah. You're right."

There's a long pause here until Scott speaks up again.

"So what do you wanna do? You wanna pretend we're each other to our parents?"

"Oh, yeah, that. Uh. Honestly, I guess that's probably the best option? What do you think?"

"Yeah, I mean. It should be easy, we know everything about each other, and we know each other's parents real well too. It's not like some cheesy movie where we have to adjust to all this weird stuff about each other. And that'll be easiest on them. I'm tired of totally freaking Mom out every other minute. It's not like we're in danger."

"Yeah, totally. Okay. We're doing this. I guess I'll drop you off at...no, wait, I'll drop myself off at your house and then...you're gonna have to drive to my house."

"Okay—wait, I haven't driven a car in forever," Scott says, remembering how he hasn't even driven one once ever since he got his motorbike.

"You'll be fine."

"But—I don't know how to drive stick, either."

"Look, it's fine, we'll just...okay, here, let's just...okay," Stiles slows down and pulls over on the side of the road. They're still a ways away from their houses, on a long, straight street that's totally deserted this time of night. "Let's swap."

"What?" Scott's eyes widen.

"I hope you're a fast learner," Stiles says, clapping Scott on the back a few times.

"What? You're just gonna teach me now?"

"Well, what else can we do? This isn't gonna work if you can't drive my car. And you better not crash it or I _will_ kill you. I'm not even joking, I could really do it too, I'm all wolfy and strong now."

Scott actually looks a little nervous.

"Come on!" Stiles gets out of the car and goes over to Scott's side, yanks the door open. "Come on, big guy, hup two, let's go."

"Um," Scott gets out of the car and reluctantly takes the driver's seat.

"Just take it slow," Stiles says as he buckles himself in.

"But what if I suck and kill us? What if I get pulled over? I don't have a license anymore, I mean, not a car one!"

"Well I _do_ , so just _don't_ kill us, and if you get pulled over, you show the officer _my_ license."

"Yeah, okay. Duh. Yeah," Scott grabs the wheel and looks straight ahead, taking a few breaths.

"Yeah. Duh," Stiles slumps back in his seat.

"Okay, um," Scott starts up the car and then stares at Stiles. "Now what?"

Stiles groans. "Have you _been_ in this car before? Jesus, haven't you ever seen me drive?"

Scott is definitely a learn-by-doing kinda guy and not learn-by-watching so he knows next to nothing from sharing this car with Stiles a million times over the past few years. So Stiles explains the clutch and the gears and all of his Jeep's weird quirks and how to keep an eye on the RPM and they may or may not stall several times but Stiles assures him it's normal and after a while it's not too bad once Scott gets some confidence going. He starts out slow, but the road is simple and it's not long before he's picking up some real speed.

"There, see? You're doing good," Stiles says encouragingly. "Now just — okay, you totally flew past the turn you were supposed to take."

"Shit, I did?" Scott glances back. "What do I do?"

"You make a u-turn, dumbass!"

"Stop being such a dick!"

"Stop being such a shitty driver!"

"This car is fucking _complex_ , dude!"

"Hey, dealing with these werewolf feelings is fucking complex and you don't see _me_ bitching!"

"You've been bitching this whole time!"

"Yeah, well—" Stiles cuts himself off when he realizes he has no response to that. So he just laughs. A breathy laugh as he shakes his head, that turns into full blown laughter and Scott joins in a little. "Fuck, dude."

"Yeah," Scott says quietly. "Sorry."

"What? _I'm_ sorry. This is so fucked up. I'm just so angry for no reason, this blows."

"It's not for no reason," Scott says gently. "Okay, wait, I gotta concentrate."

He looks all around like it's not obvious there's no one around, then carefully makes a u-turn and turns onto the road he should've earlier.

"But yeah, okay, so it's like, you got the werewolf stuff going on and that's not easy. And then, like, our _bodies_. It's okay to be angry."

"Yeah. Thanks, man. Shouldn't take it out on you, though."

"Seriously, what a douche," Scott says before laughing.

"Hey! I'd smack you right now if I didn't think it'd make you crash and kill us."

"Oh my god, dude, don't even joke."

Stiles directs Scott closer to their houses until he finally starts recognizing the streets, because apparently he never pays attention to where they go when Stiles drives. When Scott finally pulls up into his own driveway, he turns off the car and they stare at each other.

"Welp," Stiles says with a pop on the p.

"Yeah."

"Oh, here," he digs out his own cell phone and gives it to Scott. "You better take this in case you need it. I guess I should just use yours."

"Yeah, okay," Scott takes the phone. "Oh, uh, if you use mine...don't, uh...you know what, never mind."

"Oh my god, don't _what?_ Now you _have_ to tell me."

"Augh, nothing, never _mind_. If I say it, you'll just do it immediately. Forget about it. Make sure you charge it."

"Yeah, I'm familiar with how to use a phone."

"Okay, smart ass, get out of here," Scott says with a dopey grin.

"Yeah, yeah. You sure you know how to get home, Stiles, my best bro?"

"Ugh, don't call me that. That's way too weird."

"Oh yeah, way weirder than the whole body swap thing."

" _Way_ weirder."

Stiles laughs. "Okay. Leaving now. You should...it's Saturday, right? So you should text everyone tonight so hopefully we can get everyone together tomorrow before school on Monday."

"Sure. Wait, no, you do it, so it comes from my phone. Just pretend to be me for the texts so it's easier."

"Oh, okay, yeah. _I'm_ the alpha, now," he says, all dramatic, and Scott smacks him against the chest with the back of his hand. "Ack, okay, okay. See ya, Scotty."

They wave each other off, and Stiles takes a moment to watch after the Jeep and to make sure he gets the car rolling properly before heading into Scott's house.

He knows this house inside and out, has since they were kids, but it just feels so wrong to come here alone at night like this, knowing Scott's mom is in there, and not to mention that she'll think he's Scott.

The lights are off inside except a dim light in the kitchen, so he heads over there. Ms. McCall is sitting at the kitchen table over a microwave dinner, and looks up when she sees him.

"Oh, hey there, sweetie," she says, a smile breaking out over her tired face.

"Uh, hey, Mom," Stiles says quietly, and he's taken by surprise at how his throat constricts with emotion when he says it.

Ms. McCall holds out a hand and waves him over, so he steps up to her until he's within reach and she pulls him in and gives him a kiss on the temple. He looks at her, trying to not look surprised before she taps her own cheek. "Come on, tough guy."

Stiles leans down quickly and kisses her on the cheek and they smile at each other as he takes a seat next to her.

"So, did you have fun with Stiles?" she asks as she takes a huge bite of her food.

"Uh, yeah."

"Yeah? Good," she smiles again. "You know, he can always sleep over if you guys are going to stay out late. I don't like him driving home all alone in the dark, it's not safe. Especially now I know what kind of stuff is lurking in the darkness, yeesh." She gives a little shudder.

"Oh, um, yeah, cool. Thanks," he says awkwardly, not really knowing what to say, and also feeling kind of really happy that she cares about his well-being like that. He sort of always knew, she's taken care of him in tons of ways since he was a little kid, but it's just so weird to hear it from a third person perspective like this.

She smiles, her eyebrows furrowed a little in bemusement, like his response wasn't quite natural. "So, you boys get anything to eat?"

"Oh, no, not really," he says, realizing now how hungry he is all of a sudden.

She tsks. "You've got to remember to take care of yourself better. Go on, go grab something."

"Yeah," he says as he gets up and goes to the fridge. "Thanks."

"So full of thanks today," she teases with a broad smile.

"Oh," Stiles says, mentally berating himself. He's acting like himself, like he's a guest, instead of like he lives here like Scott. "Sorry."

"No, no. Don't ever apologize for being grateful. It's nice to hear. Everyone could use a good 'thank you' now and again."

Stiles smiles. "Yeah, sure."

He ends up getting out a frozen mini pizza, a thing he knows Scott likes so it's not weird, and something he knows _he_ likes, so he actually enjoys it. He's not sure how this sort of interbody, cross-sense kinda stuff works when it comes to taste buds but he's not in the mood to figure it out in the middle of the night with Scott's mom. So he just nukes his pizza and sits down with her at the table and it's kind of...really nice. They chit chat, she tells him about her chaotic shift at the hospital, he tells her an edited version of his trip with Scott to the woods (well, he has to talk about "Stiles", which gets surprisingly un-weird surprisingly fast), and he starts to feel a lot more comfortable, and it's good. It's just Ms. McCall, after all. He knows her.

Long after they've finished eating, the conversation hits a natural lull, and she sighs contentedly and stands up, taking both their plates and tossing them in the trash. "It's pretty late. We should go to sleep."

"Yeah, okay," Stiles agrees and he stands up and follows her up the stairs. Before Scott's bedroom door, they pause and she says, "Good night, sweetheart. Love you."

He has to swallow down a lump in his throat. "Love you, too, Mom. Night."

She gives him a little one-armed hug and another kiss on the top of his head before heading down to her own room. Stiles go into Scott's room and closes the door, before leaning against it and putting a hand over his mouth. This is hitting him like a ton of bricks. When he agreed to pretend to be Scott for a while to his mom, he didn't think for a second about what it'd be like to have to pretend he _had_ a mom, and what it'd do to him.

He loves his dad, like, a lot, and of course he'll always love his mother and her memory, but...it's different, being older, almost an adult, really, and interacting with a mother figure. Obviously he's known Ms. McCall for forever, and even seen her as a sort of surrogate mother figure in a lot of ways throughout his life, but she's always just been his best friend's mom. And it's a very distinctly different feeling when he's getting the son treatment from her, full-blast. Him and Scott are way too tight for him to feel jealous of Scott, but...at the very least, he almost sort of feels grateful for the opportunity to get this, even in this weird, convoluted way.

Pushing himself off the door, he scrubs his hands through his hair a few times before remembering he's got some texting to do. He pulls Scott's phone out of his pocket and opens it up. Then he remembers about how Scott almost told him to not do something on the phone. With a mischievous smile he sits down on the bed and gets ready to do some investigating, but figures he should send out that text first. Scott's got an Android while Stiles has an iPhone so it takes a second to figure out, but he finally pulls up the group chat text they've got going on for pack stuff, and he composes his message.

_Some weird magic shit went down with me and Stiles tonight and we need to talk about it. Need everyone's help fixing it. Hard to explain through text so we should meet up tomorrow._

_Derek, is your place free for a pack meeting?_

There. It probably sounds too much like himself but whatever. Now it's time to do some digging.

He scans through Scott's other text conversations. Recent stuff with Kira, a ton of old stuff from Allison that makes Stiles' heart clench painfully. Stuff from pack members scattered throughout and of course his constantly ongoing conversations with Stiles himself. Nothing too weird here, but Stiles feels creepy poking around too much.

He brings up the web browser and goes through some of his history, but nothing really weird there either. A bunch of dumb Google searches and a few boring sounding porn videos.

He figures he'll browse through some of his photos before giving up, already getting a little bored with the whole thing. The pictures are pretty fun though, a lot of stuff Stiles was actually there for and remembers fondly, a few humorously try-hard selfies that he surely took for Kira, some random landscapes. And then Stiles keeps scrolling to see a ton of pictures of a dick from slightly different angles, and Stiles nearly chokes on his own spit. They're like, above-view pictures of a dude with tan skin and familiar abs, so they must be of Scott. He can't believe it. _Dick pics_. It's amazing, truly amazing. He's not sure whether to laugh or cry.

He brings up the text messages again and texts his own phone: _Found your dick pics and omfg_

Then he changes over to the group text to see he's already gotten a few responses. Derek says his place is free all day and Kira says she's free to meet up and hopes they're okay. He should probably text back that they're technically fine, mortal-wound-wise at least, but he's suddenly feeling super drained. He stands up and puts the phone on the nightstand, before starting to strip off his clothes and feeling really weird about it once he's down to his boxer briefs. Well. Scott's boxer briefs. Man, this is weird.

Is he even allowed to get Scott's body naked? That should probably be allowed, right? It's almost unavoidable, really. And it's not like it's anything he hasn't seen before. He's seen Scott a million times in the locker rooms and throughout their childhood, and now thanks to his snooping he can add seeing Scott hard to his repertoire. Yeah, okay. This is fine. He pulls off that last bit of clothing and sits back down on the edge of the bed.

He doesn't _want_ to look. He's just...his eyes are compelled beyond his will. He looks down, and okay, there's Scott's soft dick hanging there between his legs. For a second, the thought that he could see it hard right here in the flesh floats through his mind before he forcefully pushes it out and just flicks off the light and lays down under the covers. Whatever. He's exhausted. He'll deal with everything in the morning.


	2. Chapter 2

Stiles wakes up to the sound of knocking, but doesn't open his eyes or really try to wake _up_ until he feels a weight thump down next to him on the bed.

"Stiles, wake up. Wake up," he hears, as his body starts to get shaken with two hands.

"I'm up, I'm _up_ ," he grumbles as he rolls around and looks up to see himself sitting on the edge of the bed. A jolt of surprise shoots through him for a split second before he remembers it's Scott. "Shit, fuck. I almost forgot about..." He gestures between them.

"I had to get out of there, man," Scott says, still idly shaking Stiles' hip. "Malia's really...intense."

"What?" Stiles pushes Scott's hand off him and sits up in the bed. "What happened?"

"Okay, so, last night I went home and, and—Malia was just _there_ , eating dinner with your dad, like...does she do this _often_ , like, what the hell? And obviously I had to pretend to be you in front of your dad, so I had to pretend I was dating Malia, and then _finally_ after dinner, we go up to your room and—" He pauses and rubs his face real quick. "She came on _strong_ , dude."

"Wha—so what did you do?" Stiles asks, fear and a little anger starting to bubble up in his gut.

"Nothing! We didn't do anything!" Scott says quickly, waving his hands in front of him, and Stiles relaxes. "At first I tried to tell her I wasn't you but she totally wasn't having any of that so I just said I wasn't feeling good and I was way too tired to do anything. She thought that was really weird too, but she finally bought it."

"Uh, yeah it's weird, 'cause I would literally never turn down sex, ever."

"I dunno how you do it, man. Just take it from me, as an outsider looking in, she is _crazy_ about you, bro. You're a lucky guy."

Stiles gives a sheepish smile, looking down at his hands in his lap. "Yeah. She's amazing." He pauses, thinking about Malia. "Okay, buddy, let's get this show on the road so we can clue our girlfriends in."

He stands up and grabs Scott's phone off his desk when Scott goes, "Dude, what the fuck, why are you naked?"

"What?" Stiles glances back at Scott. "I sleep naked."

"Not when you're in my body, you don't!"

Stiles heaves a dramatic sigh and tugs back on Scott's underwear and jeans from yesterday. "What's the big deal? We're gonna have to get each other naked while we're like this. That...sounds really weird, but it's true. How do you expect to take a piss? Or shower?"

Scott looks horror-stricken. "I didn't think of that."

Stiles laughs at his tragic puppy dog face. "Don't worry about it. We've seen each other naked a million ti—oh, dude, did you get my text?" He asks, suddenly remembering his magnificent dick pic discovery and getting so excited at the prospect of humiliating Scott.

"Ugh, yes," Scott groans, dropping his face down into his hands. "I didn't see it last night 'cause I was on damage control with Malia but I saw it this morning and I want to die."

"They were _recent_ ," Stiles says with a grin, bouncing on the balls of his feet.

Scott groans even louder and flops back on the bed. "I don't know what I was thinking. I took them with like this vague idea of sending them to Kira or something, but then I thought, sure, we've sexted a little, but we haven't actually had sex yet, what the hell is she gonna think if I send her an unsolicited _dick pic_? So then I thought about posting one on one of those rate-my-dick threads on that image board you showed me, but I chickened out and couldn't do it."

Stiles is laughing by the end of that. "Oh my god. Cutest dick pic story ever." He looks down at Scott's phone and starts tapping around on it. "I am _so_ posting them on 4chan."

"No, you can't!" Scott launches at him and grabs at the phone. Stiles is still laughing as he holds the phone up in the air and keeps Scott at bay easily with his recently acquired strength. "Gimme the phone, Stiles, I'm serious!"

They wrestle around with it for a while before Stiles' efforts turn half-hearted and Scott snags the phone.

"There, I deleted them," Scott says triumphantly before handing the phone back.

Stiles rolls his eyes and grabs the phone before checking that group chat with the pack to see that everyone else has responded, giving times that they're available. They overlap in the afternoon, so Stiles picks a time and sends it out. Scott sits back on the bed and follows the conversation on Stiles' phone. Then Stiles plops down next to him and looks at him seriously.

"You _do_ realize I'm the one currently in possession of your dick and therefore now able to take pictures of it whenever I want, right?"

"Ugh," Scott shoves Stiles hard but it barely even budges him. "If you even think of putting a picture of my dick in any kind of public place, I will kill you _so much_. And besides, you're not allowed to get a boner with my dick."

"What? What kind of man can keep himself boner-free by sheer force of will? I'm pretty sure I had one this morning before you woke me up and totally killed it with your...me-face. God, it's still really weird looking at my own face talk."

Scott sighs. "Tell me about it. Whatever. Get boners if you want. Hopefully we just don't have to deal with this for much longer."

"Yeah."

They're silent for a while before Stiles puts his hands on the bed behind him and leans back a little. "Well. I hate to tell you this, but we totally reek from the woods yesterday. And it's a thousand times worse than normal for me 'cause of this dumb werewolf nose, so. We kinda gotta shower."

"Yeah, okay, fine," Scott grumbles.

"I'll go first," Stiles says, getting up. "I would say, 'just make yourself at home', but, y'know."

"Yeah, yeah, real funny," Scott says, already going to his desk and starting to rifle through his own backpack.

Stiles heads into Scott's en suite bathroom and turns on the shower, shucking his pants and underwear and tossing them into the hamper as he waits for it to heat up a little. He's taken a shower here before during numerous sleepovers so he's already familiar with it. He hops in and washes his hair with Scott's shampoo and scrubs down the rest of himself. He lingers on Scott's dick, he can't help it, it's just so weird. Scott saying _you're not allowed to get a boner with my dick_ rings through his head and he tries not to think about how often he usually masturbates in the shower. He can't do it now anyway, not with Scott in just the next room, he'll probably hear it with his super werewolf — wait. He's got just regular old human senses right now. He wouldn't really mind if Stiles just rubbed one out real fast, would he? Doesn't the man know how relieving a good old fashioned jerk can be? Stiles even missed the chance to have sex with his girlfriend last night, how lame is _that_.

Okay, he's doing this. He's already got his hand wrapped around his slowly-forming chub. He rubs his thumb around the head a little, reveling in the all too familiar buildup and yet feeling way different at the same time. Who would've thought he'd ever get to jerk off in someone else's body. It's kind of amazing and it takes him hardly any time at all to get rock hard about it. He tries to keep from being too loud on instinct, biting his lip and keeping his hand from hitting his body on the downstroke to reduce that telltale slapping noise. He braces one hand against the shower wall as he gets close fast, looking down at the cock in his hands and thinking, _this is Scott's dick_. This is what he sees when he jerks off.

To be honest, he's bigger than Stiles, kind of by a lot. Longer and thicker, with a kind of cute little gradient in color from the base to the head. Stiles likes to think at least his own dick is a really nice looking one, like the kind you see in porn and you just kinda really wanna suck it. Stiles even tried to suck his own dick once but it just ended up in a narrowly-avoided muscle sprain. But Scott's dick is nice looking, too. Kind of mushroom-headed, but really, who even cares once the thing is inside some kinda hole. It might even feel good — for Scott or the recipient, Stiles isn't sure which. He tries not to think of how this dick would feel in any of his holes as he feels himself get right up to the edge, and he just closes his eyes and leans his head back a little and comes, balls squeezing up tight as he shoots all over the shower wall. God, he can smell it. The smell of his come is so distinct and Stiles is pretty sure that's what the low level layer of scent was all over Scott's room that he smelled without even really paying attention. Is this the level of smell ability all werewolves have? How can any of them stand it? Does this mean Scott could smell it in Stiles' room every time he jerked off there? Right now, he's not sure whether that thought is mortifying or hot.

Stiles sighs and wipes his come off the wall before rinsing off again real quick and then getting out of the shower. He dries off with the towel hanging on the rack, the one Scott must've used a few times before they swapped. He wraps it around his waist and goes back into Scott's room, where he finds him doing some homework at his desk.

"Yo, shower's free," Stiles says as he goes to Scott's closet to get dressed, dropping the towel.

"Okay, thank—" He cuts off and Stiles turns to see him staring at him. 

Stiles waggles his eyebrows. "Like what you see?"

"Dude, it's my own body, I see it every day."

Stiles still bends forward a little and shakes his ass. He feels emboldened by having Scott's body, like it's okay to act sexy with this one because it's just endorsing its sexiness, but not with his own because it'd just be creepy or arrogant. "Yeah but now you get to enjoy it from all sorts of fun angles you never could before."

Scott laughs as he gets up and he tries to shove Stiles playfully. It looks like he puts a good effort into it but Stiles only stumbles a little, and that's mostly because he was taken off guard.

"Man, this body's no fun at all, I can't push you over anymore," Scott whines.

"Oh, yeah, a sorely missed feature of our dynamic on my part," Stiles teases, then pushes him over just to show him what it's like.

"Fuck!" Scott yelps, hitting the floor with his shoulder with a crashing thud, and Stiles winces at the unexpectedly loud noise.

"Yeah, no kidding. I dunno how you forgot how painful it is to be a squishy human in the few short years you've been a werewolf, dude."

"Damn," Scott grunts before drawing a hissing breath through his teeth as he sits up and rubs at his shoulder.

"Hey, quit it with the roughhousing, boys!" Ms. McCall shouts down the hall, and they hear footsteps. Before either of them can react, she's opening the door, saying, "You're gonna break through the—oh, god!"

She slaps a hand over her eyes the instant she processes the sight of what looks like her son, naked, standing over his best friend sitting on the ground in front of him.

"I'll just—let you two get back to...whatever this is," she says, slinking back out of the room with her eyes still closed.

"Nonono, wait!" Scott calls after her in horror but Stiles can hear her continued footsteps fading away. Scott whips his head around to look at Stiles, eyes wide. "You have to talk to her! It doesn't make sense for me to!"

"I—what the hell do I say?" Stiles cries, rushing back to Scott's closet to throw on some clothes. "'It's not what it looks like'?"

"Uh, _yeah_ , for starters!" Scott says as he scrambles to his feet. "Just tell her the truth, it's not like we really were doing anything! C'mon, go, before she gets any crazy ideas. I still have to go shower."

"Okay, yeah, okay," Stiles scrubs his fingers through his hair a few times before heading downstairs to find Scott's mom. She's in the kitchen in her scrubs, bustling about.

"Uh, hey," he says quietly, and she turns to look. He jerks his thumb to gesture behind him, referring to what just happened. "That wasn't—"

"Look," Ms. McCall holds her hands up before crossing them over her chest. "It's none of my business what you two get up to, and it's not like it's a surprise with the way you two act and after you had that thing for him when you were younger, but you—"

"Wait, what? The 'thing I had for him'?"

"Oh, sweetie, I'm sorry, I know you said you got over it, but—well, the point is, I just need you to promise you'll tell Kira and Malia, because I will _not_ condone going behind anyone's—"

"Whoa, _what?_ " Stiles head is spinning, he has no idea where to start. "No! Sco—Stiles and I aren't doing anything! And I never had a _thing_! He just, I just got out of the shower and we're super chill so I hadn't put any clothes on yet. It—I know it must've looked weird but we're bros, it wasn't a big thing. We have _girlfriends_ , dude. Mom. Dude-mom."

She looks at him like, _do you really expect me to believe that?_ and Stiles feels like such a dumbass. There's no way Scott and Stiles really would've been _that_ comfortable naked in front of each other before, not since they were really young and it didn't matter, but with their bodies swapped it feels totally different. It didn't even really feel like he was exposing himself. And he wasn't, he was exposing Scott. _To_ Scott, no less.

"Mom, we see each other shower in the locker rooms all the time, it's a total normal guy thing. We were just goofing off."

She uncrosses her arms to throws up her hands again and then slaps them back down against her thighs. "Alright. I'll take your word for it. Just don't let me see that kind of thing again unless there's no more girlfriends in the picture. Or unless they're...into that kind of thing, I'm not—"

"Oh, my god!"

"I just mean no sneaking behind anyone's back! That's all I'm trying to say!"

"Okay, I get it! Now I'm leaving before I throw myself off a cliff!" He turns and starts to flee back up the stairs.

"Don't talk like that!" Ms. McCall shouts after him as he goes back into Scott's room. The room is empty and the bathroom door is closed and Stiles can hear the shower going on through the other side of the wall. He pays it no mind until underneath the patter of the shower water he hears the rumble of a voice. His eyes shooting up to the door, he creeps closer and listens in. It's _moaning_. He hears that and that slapping noise he had tried to avoid earlier and holy shit, Scott is totally jerking it, that hypocritical bastard. He's all 'don't get a boner' until _he's_ the one left to his own devices and realizes how ingrained it is in them both no matter which body they're in.

After a bit, Stiles starts to feel creepy for continuing to listen, but it's just so morbidly fascinating. Scott's tugging away on _Stiles'_ dick, how weird is that. He can visualize it all; it's his own body, after all, and he's no stranger to its reactions when he's having some good alone time. He wonders if Scott notices their difference in size. He's got to, it's pretty obvious, especially when you're so used to your own dick all your life. He wonders what he thinks of it, if he thinks it's lame, or if he misses his own giant cock.

Thinking about this is kinda getting Stiles hot again, and if he hadn't just come so recently he'd so be down for another round. Instead, he tears his attention away and looks over at the homework Scott was doing at his desk. It's math problems, and so many of them are wrong. So many. He must've done it in a rush. He sits down and starts correcting stuff, showing his work to the extreme so hopefully he can show Scott later and explain it. It's just a short while later before Scott comes back into the room, fully redressed in the clothes he came here in.

"Hey," he says, hushed. "How'd it go?"

"What?"

"Your talk with Mom!"

"Oh, oh, yeah, it was really weird. I think she still thinks we're banging."

" _What?_ What'd you say to her?" Scott asks as he moves to sit on the bed. "What're you doing to my homework?"

"Uh, _fixing_ it? You're welcome," he sighs and leans back in the desk chair. "I dunno, she basically said that if we want to bang, we can't hide it from our girlfriends. I think she's actually down with us being in like, a foursome relationship. She's chill as hell, man."

"What the _fuck?_ How in the world did the conversation go that way? How did you mess this up so bad?"

"Hey, no, it's fine! I told her we _aren't_ banging. Oh, but—dude, she said she thinks you used to have a 'thing' for me?" he says, making air quotes. "What does _that_ mean?"

"Oh, my god," Scott groans, throwing himself onto the bed and burying his face in his pillow. "I want to die. Just kill me now."

"Wait, did you really have a thing for me?" Stiles' face breaks into a grin and he pounces on Scott. "Oh, my god, you're in love with me! Is it my hot bod? Or my charming smile?" He grabs two fistfuls of the back of Scott's hoodie and shakes him hard. "It's my sense of humor, isn't it? It's hard to resist, I don't blame you at all."

"Shut up!" Scott yells through the pillow. "I'm not in love with _you_ , I'm in love with Kira. I _hate_ you."

"No, you don't, you _love_ me!" Stiles sing-songs as he pushes him and forces him to roll over so he can see his face. His cheeks are pink and he's all pouty and it's hysterical. "Come on, gimme the deets. Your mom said it was a while ago, when was it?"

"Middle school," Scott grumbles, looking away. "It was just a stupid thing. We spent so much time together and I still thought girls were icky and you were all I thought about and I saw these two dudes kissing on TV and I thought, whoa, I could totally do that with Stiles, and I freaked out a little."

"Oh, my god, dude!" Stiles is grinning so hard his face hurts. "You're so fucking cute, even when you're wearing my face. I can't believe this, my whole world view is changed forever. Scott McCall used to have a crush on me. Hot damn."

"I'm gonna kill you."

"So how'd she find out? D'you ask for advice about your boy problems?"

Scott grabs the pillow from under his head and smacks Stiles in the face with it. "You're probably gonna laugh."

"Almost definitely," Stiles yanks the pillow away from him and hugs it against his stomach.

"She might have seen a notebook of mine where I wrote 'Scott Stilinski' all over it."

And Stiles does laugh. He laughs _so_ hard. He leans forward so far his forehead nearly touches the bed, his lungs squeezing out wheezy, nearly silent laughs at the image of pre-teen Scott mooning away over Stiles, writing their names together in little hearts. He doesn't know why it catches him so funny but it does and he can't stop for a while, not until Scott takes advantage of his laughter-weakened state and shoves him off the bed and onto the floor.

"Holy shit, man," Stiles pants, wiping his eyes as he rolls onto his back. "My mind is blown. I love you so much right now."

"I hate your guts," Scott says as he slides off the bed and moves to sit cross-legged on Stiles' stomach. "But I do love being able to hit you and not have to worry about not checking my strength and accidentally hurting you."

"Not gonna lie, it's really fun. I miss it already."

They both startle when they hear a knock at the door, and Ms. McCall's voice on the other side, "Okay, boys, I'm off to work."

"Okay, Mom," Scott calls, then looks at Stiles and says, "Oops. C'mon, get up and say goodbye to her."

They both get up and Stiles goes to open the door and chase Ms. McCall down to the front door. "Hey, um, have a good day at work."

She smiles brightly as she shrugs on a jacket, before pulling her hair out from where it gets stuck in the back. "Thanks, Scott. Try not to get into too much trouble. Got any plans for the day?"

"Oh, you know...pack meeting at Derek's later today. Just standard stuff."

"Alright. And remember what I said, okay? No sneaking!"

"I'm _not_ ," Stiles says in a feigned whiny teenager voice and then he smiles and gives her a hug goodbye. Then he hops back up the stairs and Scott's back at his desk.

"What the hell is _this_?" he exclaims over one of the math problems, and Stiles comes over to help him out. They finish the assignment together, and by then it's about lunchtime.

"C'mon, let's go grab something to eat," Stiles says, slapping Scott on the back as he grabs his cell phone off the desk and shoves it in his pocket.

"Yeah, okay," Scott says with a sigh, leaning back in the chair and stretching his arms high above his head. "Let's go."

They head outside to the Jeep and Stiles offers to drive but Scott says he needs the practice, so he starts heading down the road and Stiles feels like he's already improved a little. They end up deciding on In-N-Out like the obnoxious Californians they are, and the line wraps around the whole building like always but it never bothers them. After they finally get through the line, they realize they have just enough time to eat and get to Derek's place for the meeting. So they park in the lot and scarf down their burgers and then head to Derek's.

After they pull open the door to the loft, they take stock of everyone there — Derek and Braeden standing in the kitchen together, Lydia and Liam sitting on the couch, Kira and Malia standing near the entry, talking to each other. Everyone's here.

The instant she hears the door open, Kira looks over before rushing up to Stiles and throwing her arms around him. He catches her awkwardly and hugs her back as she says, "I was so worried."

"Oh, uh..." He pats her on the back and looks over at Scott for help but instead he sees Scott flailing backwards to avoid a kiss from Malia. "Whoa, hey!" Stiles grabs Kira's shoulders and gently pulls away from her and he steps over to Scott and pulls him back. He holds out a hand, palm out, to everyone else and says, "Okay, just hold it with the hugging and the kissing right now. We, uh...actually, you wanna take the floor here, Scott?"

Stiles winces the second the name leaves his mouth as everyone gives them confused looks.

"Yeah, okay," he steps further into the apartment, looking around at everyone. "So, uh, everyone, this is about what happened to Stiles and I—well. That's the thing. We look like we do but he's Stiles, and I'm Scott."

He gestures between them and everyone in the room looks around at each other. 

"We went to the woods near the edge of town last night and fell into some river, and came out like this," Scott continues to explain. "We tried a few things to reverse it, like jumping back in, but I thought we'd be better off getting help from you guys before we did something stupid."

Still, no one says anything. Scott and Stiles exchange nervous glances before Stiles goes, "Oh, come on! You can hear our heartbeats, can't you? I know I goof off a lot but we're _not_ joking about this."

"It wouldn't be the first time either of you were being influenced by something that didn't reveal its lies," Kira says hesitantly.

Scott's face falls, and Stiles' goes hard. He knows it's true and it's good for them to be cautious but it still stings.

"I don't know what to tell you guys," Scott says quietly. "Just that if it's some sort of trick, it's got us tricked too. And we need your help figuring out how to fix this."

Malia steps up to Stiles and looks at him. Stiles tries to convey every last bit of himself that he can through his eyes, and she raises a hand to touch his cheek. He puts a hand on her waist and gives a gentle smile. Just as she leans in, he hears Kira go, "Wait, I dunno if I really—" but then Stiles' and Malia's lips touch in a chaste kiss.

"Dude," Scott says flatly.

Stiles looks over at his indignant face. "What? We—"

But Scott tips his head towards Kira and Stiles turns; she looks shocked.

"No, no, no, don't freak out," Stiles says quickly as he steps towards her. "I'm not Scott! Can't you tell? You've got your whole kitsune deal going on, isn't that part of the package?"

Kira frowns. "It's not that I don't... _trust_ you. I guess this just a really weird thing to process all of a sudden, I mean, I basically just watched my boyfriend kiss some other girl, and I'm just—"

Scott goes up to her and puts a hand on her shoulder. "Hey, it's okay. Take your time, Kira, I don't want us to do anything that freaks you out."

Kira smiles gratefully. "I'm sorry, it's just...I want to believe you. But I kind of want to talk about this somewhere where everyone else isn't listening?" She glances behind her at the rest of the pack in the apartment, staring at the pair of them, who then try and look like they weren't the instant she turns their way.

Scott grins. "Yeah, okay. Let's talk about us later. I think right now we should go back to where we saw that river. Now that it's daytime and we can get you guys's second opinion, I think we can figure some stuff out."

So they pile into their cars, Malia and Kira coming with Scott and Stiles in the Jeep, and Derek taking Braedon, Liam and Lydia in his car after Stiles tells him, "Just follow behind me."


	3. Chapter 3

Stiles is the one to drive them in the Jeep to the woods because he knows the way and he's not in the mood to coach Scott on his driving. It's a bit of a drive, so Stiles says, "Okay, we got some time, do we wanna open back up relationship boundaries for discussion?"

Scott turns to look back at Kira in the back seat. Stiles sees her chew on her lip nervously through the rear view mirror. She leans forward between the front seats so they can hear her better as she says, "I still don't know what to think."

"It's okay, Kira," Stiles tries to reassure her. "Sorry I just sorta macked on Malia without thinking of how you guys would feel."

"No, it's fine, I understand. I just don't know if I feel comfortable with...doing stuff to Stiles's body," Kira says guiltily as she glances at Stiles.

"Stuff?" Scott squeaks.

"Yeah, like, you know, kissing and stuff," Kira mutters shyly, looking away at the floor of the car before looking back at Scott. "I believe you guys. And I know it's you under there, Scott. But I look at you and I just see... _Stiles_."

"Hey!" Stiles squawks. "I'm not _that_ bad."

"Not like that!" Kira says quickly. "You're a good-looking guy. You're just...not the person that I...like."

Stiles glances at her before looking back at the road, then checking his rear view to make sure Derek's following alright. He doesn't say anything, and neither does Scott for a while. Then, resigned, "I get it. I don't want to make you uncomfortable. I don't know how long we're gonna be like this. It could be another day or two, or it could be...a while."

"Yeah," Kira says glumly. "Maybe we should...go on hiatus."

"Hiatus?" Scott repeats, horrified.

"Please don't freak out, it's just...just until you're switched back. I really don't like the idea of being intimate with a different body. A-and I don't mean intimate, like, in a—a sexual way," she explains in a rush, her face turning red, "I just mean, you know. Being...romantic."

She drops her face into her hands and mumbles something else that Stiles doesn't understand.

Scott laughs and pries one of her hands away from her face. "It's _okay_. I get it." He holds her hand in both of his. "I know it's weird. I mean, hey, if you'd gotten your body switched with Stiles, I wouldn't want to make out with you either."

Kira laughs and Stiles lets out another, "Hey!"

"Okay," Scott says resolutely, letting go of Kira's hand. "Temporary hiatus. I'm okay with that."

Kira smiles brightly and leans back in her seat. Stiles glances at her and Malia in the rear view, then tentatively says, "So...just so we're clear, everyone's down with me doing stuff with Malia though, right?"

Malia catches his eye and they grin at each other at the same time Scott goes, "Dude, don't be a dick," but Kira answers him seriously with, "I don't mind. I don't really want to see it? But I don't mind."

"Okay, cool, thanks Kira," he winks at her in the mirror. "You good, Scotty? Do I get the all clear? Blanket permission for your body?"

"I guess?" Scott says with a hint of worry. "Just no permanent mutilation I guess?"

Stiles laughs. "Damn. That was the first thing I had on my list."

They get to the woods a little after that, Stiles parking off the side of the road nearby. He gets out and waits for them all to regather as a group, then makes Scott hand over his phone where he marked the location of the river on the map.

When they get there, they all split up to search the surrounding area and check out where either end of the river leads. No one comes up with anything out of the ordinary, and while Stiles had no idea what he was expecting, it's a pretty major letdown.

He glances behind him to where he thought Scott was, but he's nowhere to be seen. He looks around the area and spots him way ahead of him, talking to Lydia about something. Stiles hurries up to catch up to him, and notices Scott giving off a lot of weird energy. His arms are crossed over his chest and his fingers are tapping rapidly against his arms as he spouts off about something a mile a minute to Lydia, whose eyes flick over to Stiles and slightly widen as if to say _help_.

"Yo, Scotty," Stiles interrupts him and he glances over at Stiles but doesn't quit. "Scott. Scotty. Shut up."

Scott scoffs. "Dude."

"Man, what is up with you? You're acting like—whoa," Stiles suddenly realizes, "Dude. You're acting like _me_."

Scotts eyebrows furrow in confusion, before his eyes widen in fear. "Oh my god, is my brain like, fusing with yours?!"

"No, you dipshit. But I bet you forgot to take my Adderall this morning."

"Shit, you're right. I totally forgot. Is that really bad?"

"Eh. I took a bunch last night before we went to the woods, so you're probably not too off. But you're supposed to take one of the pills every morning and night."

"Okay...shit, dude, I should know this about you."

Stiles shrugs. "I improvise a lot with my meds. It's no big thing."

They all double check the area surrounding the river where Scott and Stiles fell, and Lydia pulls some little jars and baggies out of her purse to take samples of the water and soil.

"I can test the water to make sure it doesn't react differently than normal water should," she explains, tucking the samples back in her purse.

"You're the smartest person ever," Stiles gushes, and Lydia smirks.

"Yep," she agrees and stalks off ahead to where Braeden is walking next to Derek, and starts talking to her about something.

Stiles turns back to Scott. "Well, this was pretty much a bust."

"Yeah," Scott sighs. "I guess we can only hope Lydia finds something."

Stiles looks at him and they lock eyes. "What if—"

"Don't say it," Scott interrupts. "She'll find something."

"Yeah, but what if the—"

"Nope."

"Okay, but if there's—"

"Stiles."

"But we should really think about if—"

"Stiles!" Scott snaps. "We'll cross that bridge when we get there, okay? Let Lydia do her thing and we'll go from there."

Stiles swallows hard, then takes in a deep breath. "Yeah," he says on the exhale. "Okay."

They all head back to their cars and agree to meet up again later before piling in, and this time Scott drives. From the back seat, Kira says, "I know I should be more nervous because Scott has less experience driving, but it just looks so much better to have Stiles' body behind the wheel."

Stiles laughs. "Don't worry, Scotty boy here's got it all under control," he says with a little more confidence than he feels.

Scott drops Kira off at her place before taking Stiles and Malia to his house.

"My mom should be at the hospital tonight so it's fine for Malia to stay over if you want," he says as he idles in the driveway. "If she comes home, just...say you're working on a group project together or something. I don't want her to think I'm creeping on your girlfriend."

"Don't worry, buddy, I'll preserve your dignity till my dying breath," Stiles reassures him, smacking him on the back.

"I'm serious," Scott whines and Stiles goes, "So am I!" before hopping out of the car, about to open up the door for Malia when she opens it herself and nearly knocks him over.

"Oh, sorry," she says when she notices him stumbling back. "You shouldn't stand in the way of the door."

"Duly noted," he says with a smile before leading the way into the house, waving at Scott as he backs out and leaves.

Inside the house, they head up to Scott's room, and Stiles throws himself back on the bed. "I'm exhausted. It's actually exhausting to walk around in this dopey werewolf body."

Malia lies down and curls up next to him, resting her head on his stomach. Stiles puts a hand on her head and idly rakes his fingers through her hair. "I can't believe I couldn't tell it wasn't you last night," she says quietly.

"Huh?"

"Scott tried to tell me," she says, shifting so she can look up at Stiles. "I wanted to have sex with you and Scott tried to tell me it wasn't you, but I didn't believe him. I still can't always tell if someone's lying yet, I thought it was just you trying to be funny again."

"Yeah, Scott told me about it a little. I don't think I would've believed it either."

"No," Malia says adamantly. "I should've known."

"No, hey, it's fine," Stiles says gently, smoothing a lock of hair back behind her ear before petting her hair again. "It's not the kind of thing we've dealt with before, it's a really hard thing to believe."

"Still," she says with a pout.

Stiles laughs and leans towards her, gently pulling her head in to come closer, and he gives her a quick kiss. He tries to reassure her some more, and they end up talking about miscellaneous things for a while, Stiles so wrapped up in Malia that he doesn't notice anything outside of the bed they're lying on until he hears Ms. McCall's voice coming from down the hall through the open bedroom door. Stiles' eyes widen and he shoots up into a sitting position, dragging Malia with him before trying to scoot away and put some distance between them.

"—so try and remind me to—" Ms. McCall cuts herself off when she gets to the door and sees them. "Oh. Hi, Malia."

"Hi," she responds casually.

"Is Stiles here?" she asks, looking at Stiles.

"Uh, no," he says slowly.

Ms. McCall glances at Malia and back to Stiles, clearly confused why she would be here without him.

"We're doing a group project together?" Stiles says, fighting to keep the question mark off that sentence.

"Without any books?" Ms. McCall challenges.

"Okay, you got me. We're being thoroughly irresponsible teenagers and haven't even started the project yet. We were just talking werewolf stuff. Were...wolf and -coyote stuff. Just were-stuff."

Ms. McCall narrows her eyes. "Well, get on it. I don't want your grades slipping again, mister."

"No problemo, mamacita," Stiles says as he drags himself off the bed to go grab Scott's backpack.

Ms. McCall looks taken aback, her eyebrows furrowing as she looks torn between confused amusement and serious irritation. "What's gotten into you? I could swear you're channeling some serious Stiles vibes right now. Maybe you two need to try not being glued at the hip for once in your life."

"Oh, uh—" he looks up at her in panic, glances at Malia for help before realizing that's useless and looking back at Ms. McCall. "Sorry. Yeah. I guess he's rubbing off on me."

"Well if you don't mind, I'd like Scott back. One Stiles is more than enough in this world," she says as she turns and starts walking back down the hall. Stiles doesn't even have time to process the very slight insult or try and determine how hard Scott would normally try and defend his honor against his mom. He just drops the backpack down again and goes to shut the bedroom door behind her, turning to Malia and letting out a shaky sigh.

"Jesus."

"How come Scott's mom doesn't know you're you?" Maria asks, and Stiles' eyebrows shoot up when he realizes they never even told anyone that they weren't telling their parents.

"Oh, yeah. We're not telling our parents, we don't wanna stress 'em out any more than we have to," Stiles explains. "Good job at not breaking our cover, by the way."

Malia shrugs, then smiles. "When I'm confused, I try to just follow your lead."

Stiles grins at her as he sits back down on the bed next to her. He starts mentally debating between talking about something or just going straight into making out when his phone starts buzzing in his pocket. He pulls it out and sees his own name on the caller ID.

"Yo, Scotty," he answers.

"Hey, Stiles, I just remembered that actually my mom might get off work earlier than I thought tonight," Scott's voice comes in a rush on the other side. "I forgot she—"

"Oh, yeah, no, she's already back and seen me in bed with Malia," Stiles cuts him off in a casual voice.

" _What?_ You two were—you weren't—"

"Relax, we were just sitting here. I told her the group project spiel but I dunno if she bought it."

"Stiles, I swear to god, if you—"

"Oh! And your mom said I was channeling Stiles vibes, it totally freaked me out. Maybe she's on to us?"

"Nah, don't worry," Scott says easily. "She says that any time I'm being a jackass."

"Wow," Stiles replies flatly.

"Hey, don't act like you don't know you're a complete jackass."

"Okay. Fair enough."

"Well...okay, just don't fuck things up any worse than you already have, I gotta go."

"Alright, Scotty-o. See ya."

They hang up and Stiles turns to Malia, once again contemplating how to casually ease this into them making out when he hears a knock at the door and tries not to groan in irritation.

"It's getting kind of late, you guys," Ms. McCall says as she opens the door. "Scott, you should take Malia home soon, don't you think? Take the car."

"Oh, uh, yeah," Stiles says awkwardly. "Okay."

She smiles at them and leaves, keeping the door open. Stiles sighs and looks at Malia. "I guess it's past Scott's bedtime. C'mon, let's get going."

Downstairs, Ms. McCall tells him the keys are on the counter, and he grabs them and leads Malia out into Scott's mom's SUV. Behind the wheel, he looks dumbly at the dash and realizes he's never driven a car other than his Jeep. "Right, okay, this shouldn't be too hard."

Malia doesn't look worried at all, which is probably just a sign of obliviousness, but it's oddly calming all the same. Indeed, while it takes some effort to fight the muscle memory of how to work his Jeep, it's pretty easy getting the hang of the different car.

"So, am I taking you...home-home, or...?" he asks, knowing Malia doesn't actually spend the night at her dad's house all that often anymore, what with things being so awkward between them for her ever since she came back.

"Yeah, I guess," she says with a sigh, crossing her arms and leaning back in her seat. "This thing with you and Scott sucks. You smell all wrong, and I can't sleep over at your place. I like your bed. I think I'm homesick about it already."

Stiles heart clenches at her words, swelling with affection at the way she just candidly spells out her feelings all the time. "Yeah. Well. Hopefully we'll figure it all out soon."

He drops her off at home and kisses her goodnight before quickly making his way back to Scott's, driving fast on the virtually deserted streets.

"That was quick," Ms. McCall comments when he gets back.

"Oh, yeah, streets are pretty empty this late," he says as he tries to slip upstairs.

"Hold it, mister," she calls, and he winces before backtracking to the family room. She pats the cushion next to her on the couch. "Now that the coyote with supernatural hearing is out of the house, we can talk."

Stiles throws himself down on the couch with a huff.

"What was that all about?" she asks, looking him straight in the eye. "You looked like you forgot I was coming home early tonight. She wasn't about to spend the night, was she?"

"Uh…" He glances back at the stairs idly. "No."

She raises her eyebrows. "She's still dating Stiles, right?"

"Yeah, Mom, of course."

"This isn't…" She lowers her head a little and pins him with a Mom Look. "This isn't some sort of _pack_ thing, is it? Like what we were talking about yesterday, with you and Kira, and Stiles and Malia, the four of you, all—"

"Oh my _god_ , what is _with_ you about that? The four of us aren't in some weird pack relationship! Malia and I are just friends. _Stiles_ and I are just friends, thank you very much!"

"Okay, okay," she holds up her hands defensively. "I just want you to know it's okay, as long as everyone's on the same page and on board."

Stiles covers his face with his hands and shakes his head, a small laugh puffing through his fingers. "You're a trip, Ma. You're always surprising me with how—" he flails his hands to gesture at her in place of an adjective, "—you are."

Ms. McCall beams. "Well, I do my best. Now c'mon." She opens her arms and Stiles gives her a hug. 

They chit chat for a while before she ushers him off to bed, and once he's curled up under Scott's blankets with the lights off, he finds himself looking at Scott's phone, the screen illuminating his face in a stale light as he stares at the entry from Scott's most recent call to him, wanting to call him again but having no reason to do so. He presses on it to call him anyway, since not having a reason to do something rarely actually stops him.

"Stiles? It's late," Scott mutters when he picks up.

"Did I wake you?"

"No, it's fine," he says, which means 'yes, and you better have a good reason'.

"So I think your mom definitely thinks we're in a freaky four-way."

Scott groans. " _Now_ what'd you say?"

"Nothing! She told me to take Malia home and then when I got back, she was like, okay, what's the dealio. She asked if I was still dating her. Or, like, if she was still dating Stiles. Dude, your mom doesn't trust you around chicks at all, what are you, some sort of secret playboy I don't know about?"

Scott laughs. "She's just being a good mom. She's looking out for the girls, too. It'd be really easy to...I mean, Malia's so naive about so much stuff, she could—"

"Whoa, dude, do you spend much time thinking about how easy it'd be to take advantage of my girlfriend?"

"No! I'm saying it makes me want to look out for her more."

"Okay, well, don't let her hear you say that. She's real tough and proud of it."

"Yeah, I know."

There's a comfortable silence, and Stiles just listens to the quiet white noise of the other line. It reminds him of when they were younger, in middle school and before kids had cell phones, when they stayed up all night together on the landline. They'd talk about anything and everything, staying on the line even when they fell silent as they did something else like homework, piping up for a comment here and there. Their phone calls often ended in one of them falling asleep, the other close behind, and their parents would get mad at them for wracking up the phone bills but they didn't stop until they got older and just naturally grew out of it.

"Hey, Scott?"

"Yeah?" His voice sounds rough like he was dozing off again.

"We'll figure this out."

"Hmm?"

"Never mind. Go back to sleep, doofus."

"Mmkay."

"See you at school tomorrow."

"Yeah. Night."

"Night."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So sorry for the huge delay on this one, everyone! Got a little busy and then hit with a huge writer's block, but it should be coming faster from now on.


End file.
